I dont know what it is but its full of thornes and little red barries. Sounds wonderfull hu? I love it because its all red when everything elce is dead and I can make wonderfull wreaths out of them. (Very carefully!!)
Tasha

Tasha, you have described the alien invader Barberry!

I wouldn't want to do without ANY of the natives, but right now what first comes to mind is Tiarella. Native ferns are also underused. Christmas Fern still looks good, while most of the others are dormant. Other favorites: lilies, Ladyslipper Orchids, Veratrum, Zizia...

Bloodroot is my favorite, undeniably! I also like Ipomoea pandurata, Aquilegia canadensis, and Dentaria laciniata.

I am really a big fan of the native Yaupon Holly(Ilex vomitoria). It offers quite a lot. Nice evergreen foliage,
perhaps the most beautiful berries of any holly, handsome
grey stems and bark, and the most important:unbelievable
adaptability. It can grow in hot dry areas and cold wet swampy areas. The only limitation it has, is it thins out
in too much shade. In my zone this is by far the best choice for evergreen landscape shrubs. What a great native!

I'm thinking that Tasha might have been describing holly?

My favorite native is Aquilegia canadensis, partly for sentimental reasons -- grows in the gorges of upstate New York where I proposed to my wife -- and partly because it's tough and adaptable, though delicate-looking (like . . well, that's enough sentimentality for one post, I guess.)

for my area, ladyslipper orchids, aquilegia canadensis,
false solomon's seal, blue-eyed grass, asters, blue
flag iris and mountain laurel

i am extremely fortunate to have these plants either
on or very near my property to enjoy when i walk my dogs
my list would probably be longer if i knew the names of
other stuff i see

Up here in southern Manitoba, Canada, I love to watch the summer pass through the various flowering times of the wild plants along the roadsides and in the wild corners of pastures. Spring brings bright yellow little hoary puccoon, with a delicate sweet scent and native columbines in the woods and lot of clumps of yellow lady slippers in shady ditches if there's been enough rain. Early summer sees brilliant orange prairie lilies dotted here and there, plus sometimes my favorite, tall pink fireweed. Midsummer brings the soft purple wild monarda in sheltered spots and later the ditches are full of goldenrod and wild purple asters. There are lots more, but these are the easiest to see as we tour around the backroads and the fields. Corrie

By far my favorites are woodland plants, I'm a sucker for ferns of all sorts, mosses, various columbine spp., and little violets. There is something refreshing about all these plant's appearances. It makes me thankful to live in temperate Oregon. --Tally

Cardinal Flower gleeming beside a cool mountian stream.

I love the red bud tree and the witch hazel. Last summer I drove through the Blue Ridge Parkway and saw the native flame azaleas, a hillside of Tradescantia (not a favorite, but great to see none the less), hillsides of Allegheny Viburnum, trillium, blueberry bushes up to 20 feet high (trying to get the sun over the laurel), wonderful Sweet Bay Magnolia (my favorite for the garden), and native Lobelia, among other wonders like the Regal Lily and wild yarrow dwarfed by altitude to just a few inches.

I love growing native plants. My Redbud and Magnolia virginiana (sweet bay) are my favorites, but I really love seeing the natives in their natural habitat. I think the high point of my horticultural life was seeing the plant life at the top of Mt. Evans in Colorado. There was actually a 2 inch Mertensia in bloom in August.

At the ASU campus near the Communications Building, there is a number of tiny gardens which burst into bloom with wildflowers every spring - it's gorgeous. There are penstemons, lupines, matilija poppies, California bluebells, and, of course (my favorite), California poppies. It really softens the look of the cacti also planted in those gardens.

Chris

I have enjoyed reading about plants from other parts of the country in this thread. I've never seen most of the plants you wrote about. I hope I get to travel to them some day.
My favorite native has to be Zenobia pulverulenta or dusty zenobia. When in bloom it looks like it's made of moonlight and aquamarine, gilded with opal and set with rubies and pearls. It is simply the most beautiful thing I've ever laid eyes on. My next favorite is a toss-up between Calycanthus florida for the scent and Sarracinas for the plain weirdness of the leaf and the beauty of it's bloom.

I love the native Yellow Columbine that grows here in TX :)

My favorite native plant is water hemlock. It looks like Queen Anne's lace, grows wondrously in ponds and bogs, and has pretty lime green leaves.

I love Vernonia, Eupatorium, Solidago, Asters, Trilliums, Geranium Maculatum, Lobelia siphilitica. If chicory is native, I'll vote for that, too. I wish my yard was big enough for a bottlebrush buckeye.

Wild blue chickory is my personal fave!

I thought I was the only one who like chicories. They are weedy but that color. Personally I am having good luck with a plant called "Ceanothus americanus" or New Jersey Tea. It dies down mostly each winter. But comes back each year as a two foot rounded bush. Green leaves, round white flower balls. No pests bother it. So easy and form is great. Flowers are a tad bit odorous - not unlike hawthorne flowers. Recommend it.
I also like the wild yellow iris, I live on a river and they are along my riverbank.

I love those old garden favorites that also grow wild here - purple coneflower and black-eyed susan. Love those dainty blue bachelor buttons too.

My favorite natives are white Trilliums! There were many in Western Washington State, where I lived for seven years.

Black-eyed susans. Tough, good-looking, and MD's state flower.

Oh, boy, too many to list! Of course there are the white and deep purple violets that come up every spring, The ferns in the woods out back, along with the storksbill with its pretty pink flowers. Big majestic mullien, queen anne's lace, and St. John's wort, which finally "volunteered" in my garden!